Cultivated decorative plants generally are grown in an earth or humus root ball provided with a nutrient material and supplied with moisture in a pot shaped container.
The ball forms with the roots of the plant a root ball. This cultivated plant is used in homes and offices and other places to bring a bit of nature into these places except of course in places where such plants are not permitted. They are accepted in human habitat to improve the climate and for good health.
It has been long known to put plants, i.e. both blossoming and green plants with a ball in clay or plastic pots and then with or without an outer covering pot to place them anywhere appearance or desire dictated.
It is necessary, to prevent deterioration, to water the plants periodically, e.g. daily, to prevent drying out. Regular watering therefore, requires a house caretaker or other worker to use special care in watering since the plants should be given neither too much nor too little water.
Moreover many kinds of plants require, because of the tendency to deterioration, a fertilization or feeding which also requires considerable care.
In order to improve the conditions for supplying moisture and thus the use of the work force, particularly in an office, among other things to minimize the work required as much as possible, a so-called hydroculture, hydroponic culture or soilless medium can be used in which the plant is grown without earth and/or humus and is only provided with aqueous nutrient solution.
Disadvantageously the hydroponic growth of blossoming plants is very difficult so that hydroculture is available only for a limited number of plant species.
Finally hydroculture requires special containers so that a change from an earth to a hydrocultured plant, also necessitates a change of the entire container. Because of this one usually finds in any one place either hydroculture plants or root ball plants provided with a soil conglomerate. For the flower lover it is unfortunate that he she can not correspondingly change plants, which he has long tended and loves, from soil culture to a hydroculture without a corresponding restructuring.
Particularly during the time of his absence, e.g. on vacation, the plant lover is forced to find someone who can provide the plants with the required moisture during his absence.
Consequently automatic irrigators have been developed which feed the plants with sufficient moisture by a tube or a so-called wick.
Also known are mixtures of humus or plant earth and absorptive mineral bodies as taught in German Open Patent Application DE-OS No. 32 26 719.
Further it is known to embed the plants with root ball in expanded clay bodies which should supply the root ball with water continuously. This material is commercially available under the tradename "Grolite". Disadvantageously a uniform continuous moistening of the root ball is not guaranteed because a moisture transport is guaranteed only for the particles or grains directly adjacent the root conglomerate.
It is already known to embed a potted plant root ball in a water supplying material which comprises a granular and/or flaky product (German Open Patent Application DE-OS No. 29 25 150). Water supplying materials can include granular spheres which can take up water or deformed sponge like plastic bodies. Also here a fully effective water transport in the water supply materials is not provided; several kinds of pots may have to be nested in one another and the plants put in the water supplying material remaining in the pots. In general this teaching fails to provide any sufficient basis for, at a low cost, avoiding unnecessary plant waterings.